odd problem 119 coming in on the 110 lnb

lime4x4

SatelliteGuys Guru
Original poster
Jan 11, 2004
122
0
My brother inlaw got a dish 500 system the other week..He has a clear view of the southern sky..It's a dish pro 500 twin setup..We installed it.Found sat 119..maxed it out at 124..But there is no sat strength for the 110 satellite.No matter how we move the dish..Upon further looking found that the 119 sat is coming in thru the 110 lnb..I know this is a fact cause if i cover up the 110 lnb he loses the 119 sat..Tried turning the dish no luck.Even tried adjusting the skew angle still no go sat 119 coming in thru the 110 lnb..Any ideas?
 
lime4x4 said:
My brother inlaw got a dish 500 system the other week..He has a clear view of the southern sky..It's a dish pro 500 twin setup..We installed it.Found sat 119..maxed it out at 124..But there is no sat strength for the 110 satellite.No matter how we move the dish..Upon further looking found that the 119 sat is coming in thru the 110 lnb..I know this is a fact cause if i cover up the 110 lnb he loses the 119 sat..Tried turning the dish no luck.Even tried adjusting the skew angle still no go sat 119 coming in thru the 110 lnb..Any ideas?
The correct procedure is to only connect the 119 LNB direct to a receiver, no switches in between and align the dish to 119. After that is successful you can go on to connect the other LNB and it should be receiving a signal from 110 if you set the skew properly.
I would guess if you are unsuccessful at this stage then that LNB is dead. I haven't had an LNB fail so doubt that this has happened.
Good luck.
 
The switch is built into the lnb..I tried raising and lowering the elavation then tried moving the dish back and forth...I even tried another lnb samething sat 119 on lnb 110
 
If you tried another LNB, then i would make SURE your dish is aligned properly, and your mast is level!!

Other than that.. I'd try a second reciever, if you have one, swap it out and see if it's the same problem.
 
Try removing the ground. I've posted this before and no one else has said it fixed their problem but it worked for me. I could only get 119 or 110, never both. They reinstalled everything and nothing worked. We finally went to replace the ground and as soon as they took it off, the receiver found both satellites with a check switch. Just make sure 119 is coming in fine and you should be good to go. It might be a longshot buts its easier than getting a new receiver, etc.
 
lime4x4 said:
My brother inlaw got a dish 500 system the other week..He has a clear view of the southern sky..It's a dish pro 500 twin setup..We installed it.Found sat 119..maxed it out at 124..But there is no sat strength for the 110 satellite.No matter how we move the dish..Upon further looking found that the 119 sat is coming in thru the 110 lnb..I know this is a fact cause if i cover up the 110 lnb he loses the 119 sat..Tried turning the dish no luck.Even tried adjusting the skew angle still no go sat 119 coming in thru the 110 lnb..Any ideas?

It is DEFINITELY the alignment. Do as Claude said, but first move the dish until you get NO signal and then run a switch test. It will come back with all X's. Then you need to move the dish until you see the 119 satellite show up with a green signal strength. If you have to, cover the 110 LNB up (with anything, including tin-foil if necessary). It's about 3 degrees up and 9 degrees east of the 110 satellite. Then run another switch test once you have a good 119 signal.

If the 110 LNB continues to be the only one to pick up signal, just move the dish until you get a green locked signal on 110, and then run another switch test.

As it stands (you ran the switch test with it aimed at the wrong satellite) it will continue to search for 119 on the 110 LNB until the switch matrix is cleared. Even if you did point it correctly at 119, it would still say "wrong sat - not locked" until you performed another switch test.

I have this issue with about 95% of my RV or oilfield customers at least once. I can usually walk them through the procedure over the phone, and they never have to call with this issue again. They usually argue that they have tried "everything", and that it must be defective equipment. I just grin to myself, and continue to walk them through aiming it correctly.
 
similar but reversed issue...

Hi, I stumbled onto this thread through a Google search and found Mainstreet's advice extremely helpful (THANX). So much so, that I now got back the 119 satellite superstrong (125 on many transponders). The switch reset (pointing the dish elsewhere) did the trick for me.
In my case, I received the 110 satellite on the 119 LNB (reversed from initial poster).

Now that I got the 119 satellite as strong as never before, I did another switch test to bring the 110 LNB back, but it won't show up at all. So now my question: If I get the 119 satellite as strong as I do, is there still a chance that my dish might be misaligned and therefore won't get the 110 satellite? Or could it be that the 110 LNB has crapped out on me? Or could it be the built-in switch?

Any advice would be highly appreciated. Mainstreet? Claude?

Oh, btw, this is an about two year old system. I've experienced reception problems in the past during bad or changing weather, but otherwise it's been working well. In the last few days, reception got worse and worse with outages of 50%. The Dish 500 is set up in ZIP 10024, with azimuth, elevation and skew set up appropriately, the mast seems very straight to me, too. After I had the reception problems, I re-aimed the dish and the elevation is now slightly lower than it was at the initial install, but more according to spec (27 degrees now).This brought the 119 signal strength up from 86 to 125 (on transponder 19).

Again, any advice would be highly appreciated.
 
Be sure your skew is set correctly and your mast is perfectly vertical, if Mainstreets tips didn't help you I would strongly suggest calling a dealer or DISH for professional installation. If you are a new customer the installation should have been free.
 
boba said:
Be sure your skew is set correctly and your mast is perfectly vertical, if Mainstreets tips didn't help you I would strongly suggest calling a dealer or DISH for professional installation. If you are a new customer the installation should have been free.

Thanks boba, the skew was always set to 127º (the correct value for my ZIP) and the mast seems perfectly vertical. The installation (receiver, dish & lnbs) is about two years old (and was free then), so I'm not a new customer. I think that means I have to pay for customer service now, right?
An earlier post spoke about lnbs never breaking down, what about the built-in switch?

Any thoughts? Thanks.
 
binary said:
Thanks boba, the skew was always set to 127º (the correct value for my ZIP) and the mast seems perfectly vertical. The installation (receiver, dish & lnbs) is about two years old (and was free then), so I'm not a new customer. I think that means I have to pay for customer service now, right?
An earlier post spoke about lnbs never breaking down, what about the built-in switch?

Any thoughts? Thanks.

It just so happens that Claude and I are both at the same place right now. We're at the DISH Network Team Summit in Dallas. Wow, the new Opryland Resort is super nice!

But to the point, you could have actually moved the dish too far, and could be experiencing the same problem as the original poster. In that case, you would need to do this all over again.

Alternatively, what is the part number on your LNB? It will be on a little rectangular sticker below the lenses of the LNB, and it will be facing the DISH. Give us the part number and lot number.

Thanks,
Justin
 
Check the mast is vertical with a carpenter's level, you cannot eyeball it. The mast needs to be exactly centered in the horizontal and vertical planes or alignment can be very difficult if not impossible.
 
Hey, thanks for the fast replies everyone. I'll get back to you with the part number, Justin. Have fun at the Network Summit!
As far as starting over the aiming process, I don't have a problem with that, but it seems that when I reset the switch (so all four ports are Xs), I then have to aim the dish blindly, then do another switch test and only then check for signal strength. Otherwise, if I try to check signal strength after the reset, I won't get anything at all. I'm using a PVR 501 btw. Is this the way it's supposed to be?
BTW, after the last switch test (with very strong 119 signal), both positions for input 1 show Xs and input 2 shows 119 Odd and 119 Even.

And dirtyharry62, yes, I admit to eyeballing it a bit. Will get a carpenter's level and make sure the mast is vertical. The mast is actually a rather short mounting construct that has a baseplate (attached to top of flat parapet wall) and a mast that is bent on the bottom to allow angular adjustment by tilting it back and forth. Since it was professionally installed two years ago and has worked pretty well, I thought it should be ok. Will double check though.

Thanks again everyone.
 
binary said:
BTW, after the last switch test (with very strong 119 signal), both positions for input 1 show Xs and input 2 shows 119 Odd and 119 Even.

There's your problem. 119 should ALWAYS come in on input 1. If it is coming in on 2, you are getting it with the 110 (#2) LNB. You need to re-align.



(On a side note, it was strange getting to talk to Jim DeFranco a few minutes ago about the HD 921 situation. It appears that he's not happy with the timeframe of the rollout, either.)
 
Mainstreet said:
There's your problem. 119 should ALWAYS come in on input 1. If it is coming in on 2, you are getting it with the 110 (#2) LNB. You need to re-align.

Oh cool! It's so good to know what's wrong, makes it that much easier to fix.

Thanks Justin! Will try my luck tomorrow and post back with results.
 
Finally got it working, I think...

Hi all,

Sorry, I wasn't able to post back when I wanted to, because I had to brush up on knowledge a bit and even after that, my reception was spotty.

Here's the progress:
After I had gotten the info about my dish pointing at the wrong satellite, I tried realigning it with just the dish and receiver and someone helping downstairs. I had no success with that and assumed that I didn't get the right feedback from the Dish 501. I looked around on the web and found a very helpful article from an RV guy that had run into problems aiming the dish properly with just the receiver. Here's the url:
http://rv.net/forum/Index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/810182/srt/pa/pging/1/page/1.cfm

Anyway, it appears that the 501 won't even show a signal if the Check Switch routine had failed before and has no memory of what satellite(s) the switch is seeing. That means you have to aim the dish blindly first, then run a Check Switch, have it find the two satellites and peak the reception from there. I couldn't seem to get that to work and instead got a satellite meter at sadoun.com (http://sadoun.com/Sat/Products/Accessories/Meters/SF-95_DSS_Satellite_Signal_meter.htm ).
Aiming:
Armed with that (and an angle meter I got there as well), aiming the dish was pretty much a snap. Check Switch found both satellites and I got signals over 100 on almost all transponders.
You would think that my worries were over, but not quite. The signal kept disappearing after watching for a while (an hour, sometimes less, sometimes more).
New Dual LNB (probably didn't need that):
Reading around here a bit, I seemed to be left with the choice of a new dual LNB, or new cabling (or new receiver, but wasn't ready for that assumption). So I purchased a slightly used DishPro Twin LNB (with dish, because I didn't know that the switch is actually built into the LNB). But even after mounting that and aiming with my satellite meter, the problem was still the same (losing signal after a while on all transponders). BTW, the new LNB is not one of those CCS90... or something ones that have heat problems, I checked.
New Cabling:
Slightly frustrated, I moved on to tackle the cabling issue. At this point I wasn't so sure anymore that it wasn't the receiver's fault, but cabling was a cheaper option, so I went with it. After some reading I realized that the initiall used F connectors weren't really recommended for outdoor use. They were the crimping kind, not compression sealed ones. My cheapest option was a 100' high grade RG6 cable with compression seal connectors. Got that for around $32 on ebay (seller jvlsks sells these all the time if you're interested). Didn't want to get bulk cable, T&B connectors and a compression tool. Would've been more expensive, I believe. The cable came today and I was not so sure anymore that it would work. Maybe it was my receiver all this time!?...
Anyway, installed the new cable without problems and ran a Check Switch. Both satellites were found, so far so good. When I went to look at the transponder signals though, only a few transponders had signals over 100, the rest were simply dead. Many important transponders were missing, or not coming in. Consequently, many channels wouldn't work. As a last resort I did a front panel reset and voila, when the receiver came back, everything was in order. I've been writing this post with the receiver on and so far so good, no dropouts or important dead transponders. I'm hoping it'll stay this way as I was almost ready for cable... (not that that works without problems all the time). But I just like the idea of receiving TV from space.
As a side note, it seems to make a big difference what 501 page you're on when you do a front panel reset. The reset seems to be most effective when you're doing it on the Menu>6>1>1 page (the satellite signal strength page). After fiddling around in times of signal loss, it seemed to get reception back when I was on 119, transponder 1. Doing the reset simply while viewing a channel did no good at all then. Your mileage may vary.
Thanks again to everyone for the great advice. This board is a tremendous resource. Didn't call DishNetwork once. Couldn't have done it without you guys.
Cheers,
Hajo
-----
crossing fingers for stable signal from herein...
 
Note that the best transponders to use for Dish aiming of 110/119 are 11 & 12 - low number transponders tend to be on spotbeams. Just a simple way of "being sure".

Another thing to keep in mind is the way to clear your Switch Matrix:
  1. Disconnect satellite feed cable(s)
  2. Power-plug reboot
  3. Run Check Switch
  4. Reconnect satellites
  5. Run Check Switch again
This is especially important when changing LNBF types (Legacy/DishPro).
 
damn, here we go again...

so if anyone is still listening...

About three hours later the signal is now disappearing again :mad:

Getting the Acquiring satellite signal screen, it'll lock on for a while then drop off again and I assume it'll get increasingly worse until I won't get anything anymore. That's what happened before...

Weather is fine, mostly clear skies, 74º, 71% humidity, nothing that should be a problem. Everything but the receiver is replaced. New (well, slightly used) DishPro Twin LNB, perfectly peaked dish, new RG6 cable w/ T&B compression seal connectors.

Signal has recovered on its own just now after about 20 seconds of dropout and searching, but i'm not that hopeful it's here to stay.

Is everybody agreeing that the receiver is the problem (501)? If so, what are my options as a subscriber for about 2.5 years? Can I get a replacement 501? If so, how much? Or will I have to get a 510 and pay the monthly fee? I'm subscribed to the 120 package with locals and I have HBO. I'm in NYC.

BTW, the initial installation never had a grounding block and it still doesn't have one now. From the looks of it, none of the other dishes on the roof have one either (16 floor apartment building). Are the laws for NYC different?

Thanks for any advice,

Hajo
 
SimpleSimon said:
Note that the best transponders to use for Dish aiming of 110/119 are 11 & 12 - low number transponders tend to be on spotbeams. Just a simple way of "being sure".

Another thing to keep in mind is the way to clear your Switch Matrix:
  1. Disconnect satellite feed cable(s)
  2. Power-plug reboot
  3. Run Check Switch
  4. Reconnect satellites
  5. Run Check Switch again
This is especially important when changing LNBF types (Legacy/DishPro).

Thanks for the reply Simple Simon,

Transponder
11 on 119 is 125,
12 on 119 is 118,
11 on 110 is 108,
12 on 110 is 105

I think that should be good enough, right?

I will definitely try the Switch matrix reset you suggested, though. Maybe that'll do the trick and teach the ol' 501 a lesson...

Cheers,

Hajo
 
Those numbers are plenty good enough.

Groundinng is critical for safety of you and your receiver. In addition, the receiver and it's feed cable should be going through a surge suppressor.

Could something be blocking your signal internittently? Like are you looking over a helipad or something? Dunno why - it just came into my head.
 
***

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 2)

Latest posts